Author Salman Rushdie stabbed onstage

COLOMBO (News 1st); Author Salman Rushdie has been stabbed on stage in New York state, Foreign Media reports.

The Booker Prize winner aged 75, was speaking at an event at the Chautauqua Institution at the time he was stabbed.

New York State Police said a man ran up onto the stage and attacked him, who is now undergoing surgery at a local trauma centre.

Police detained a suspect named as Hadi Matar, 24, from Fairview, New Jersey.

Police said in a press conference that staff and audience members had rushed the attacker and took him to the ground, and he was then arrested.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini previously placed a fatwa against the author, which had been continuing for 33 years.

(Source: BBC)